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Sunday, January 28, 2018

I had some leftover milk paint after last week's jewelry box redo, so I decided to use it on a sad little curio cabinet I had stored away in my basement waiting for inspiration to strike.

The cabinet was a thrift store find -- although calling it a "find" might be a bit of a stretch.

It was dark. It was dingy. It was dated. Literally. There was a stamp on the back that read "Enesco Imports 1979.

And get a load of the felt glued onto the back of some of the cubby holes. Ooo-la-la. 1970s chic.

Fortunately, the roof section was separate from the rest of the cabinet, so the first thing I did was remove it. Then I pulled up all the felt squares and sanded off the glue residue left behind.

I took off the one handle that was still on the cabinet door. The other one had been sheared off previously. I wasn't able to remove the portion of the metal screw that was still embedded in the wood.

So instead of screwing in new hardware, I had to glue a couple of wooden knobs onto the door. It's not ideal, but it will do the job. The door isn't going to get opened real often, and the knobs aren't going to have a lot of stress on them, so I'm sure the glue will hold.

Next I broke out the milk paint. Just like with the jewelry box I redid last week, I didn't use any primer or bonding agent in hopes that the paint would peel off at least a little, leaving me with a nice chippy (faux aged) finish. But just like with the jewelry box, the paint didn't chip at all. Maybe I need to invest in better milk paint? Or maybe I've just been using it over the wrong kinds of finishes?

Except for the lack of chippy-ness, I have to say I'm happy with how the milk paint looks. It's got a nice flat finish, and it's a definite improvement over the original dark stain and felt.
I decided to decoupage newspaper onto the backs of a few of the cubbies, because everything looks better with a little newspaper decoupaged onto it.

Then I decided the newspaper was too distracting, so I whitewashed it with a quick coat of paint. Now a hint of the type peeks out, but it's very subtle.

I also screwed hooks into a couple of random cubbies, so I could hang things off of them.

Here's the cabinet with the doors closed, all ready to be put to use.

With Valentine's Day coming up, I rounded up some heart-shaped items, like this little frame, to put in a few of the cubbies.

These hearts are metal cookie cutters that I backed with newspaper-lined cardboard (proving once again that everything looks better with a little newspaper decoupaged to it).

I found this sweet heart-shaped lock in the bottom of a thrift store bin a while back.

I also put a couple of keys in the cubbies. None of them fit in the heart-shaped lock, but they were all I had, and they were the right size for the cubbies. I've had this rusty old skeleton key forever.

This one has an old-timey skeleton key look to it, too, although it is definitely not old; it came from Michael's craft store a couple years ago.
I filled some of the cubbies with newspaper flowers.

I filled a few of the other cubbies with some random treasures from around my house.

You might think this is a vintage pocket watch, but it's not. It's actually a lip gloss compact that I bought at Urban Outfitters about 10 years ago.

Anyhoo, here's the new, improved curio cabinet.
Anybody else have experience with Folk Art brand milk paint? If you've got any advice, leave a comment below. I'd love to know if there's anything I can do to get it a chippy finish with it. Or what brand would you recommend?

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Here's a little chest of drawers that I redid this week. (I think it's supposed to be a jewelry box, but I've been keeping it on my desk to store office supplies in.)

This is what it looked like when I first got it. I picked it up for a dollar at a garage sale a while back. I thought it was a cute little chest, but I wasn't wild about the orange-toned stain, which is why I decided to paint it.

Before painting, I wanted to distress the chest a bit to give it some character, so I added a few "wormholes" and scratches with a hammer and nails and then worked a little dark stain into them.

I painted the chest with some white (technically, the color is called "Petticoat") Folk Art milk paint. Milk paint is supposed to flake off if you don't apply any bonding agent or primer, giving the piece a chippy/aged sort of look. Unfortunately, my milk paint didn't flake. At all.

After one coat of milk paint, the chest just looked streaky. And sad. In a non-chippy sort of way.

So I applied a few more coats. The extra paint made the chest look better, but it also filled in all the wormholes and scratches that I had made.

To make the holes and scratches stand out again, I traced over them with a pencil. I also sanded the corners of the chest (and a few other spots) and worked some stain into those areas.

Then I Mod Podged some newspaper onto the bottoms of the drawers.
I brushed some watered down white paint over the newspaper to give it a faded, washed out kind of look and then added another coat of Mod Podge over the top to seal it.
I liked how the bottoms looked so much that I decided to add newspaper to the sides of the drawers, too.

Next, I dug through my stash of craft supplies until I found some label holders for the fronts of the drawers. The ones I had were the right size, but the wrong color.

So I painted them with some black chalk paint.

I nailed the label holders onto the fronts of the drawers and printed out some labels to go inside of them.

Then I filled the drawers with office supplies and called the project done.

I didn't get quite the chippy look I was hoping for, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I definitely prefer the white paint to the orange stain.

And the labels are a great addition. No more blindly opening and closing each drawer when I'm looking for ink or tacks or a thumb drive.

Monday, January 1, 2018

I have somehow managed to acquire a small collection of both snowflake ornaments and vintage embroidery hoops.

So as I was packing away my Christmas decorations, I decided I'd put the two together to make a few flattened snow globes (or "snow hoops") that could hang around my house for the rest of the winter.

This is what I came up with.

Here's what I started with: my snowflake ornaments, my embroidery hoops, a bag of faux snow, some silver and white glitter, a piece of posterboard and half a yard of cheap white netting.

The first thing I did was lay the embroidery hoops on the posterboard and trace around them, to create backs for the hoops. I decided I didn't want the backs to be just plain white, so I Mod Podged some newspaper onto each posterboard circle and gave them a wash of watered down white paint.

Then I decided some of my snowflakes were a little too bright and flashy ...

... so I put a basecoat of black chalk paint (in lieu of primer) on them and covered the black with either white or silver craft paint.

Then I went back to the backs, coating each one with matte Mod Podge ...

... and sprinkling on a little glitter.

I also added glitter to some of the ornaments.

I glued the ornaments down to the backs and sprinkled faux snow on them. (No glue for the snow; I wanted it to be loose like it is in a snow globe.)

Then I pulled the netting through the hoops, trimmed off the excess ...

... and glued the hoops onto the backs.

I decided to use three snowflakes in this one.

Here it is with the hoop attached and the snow inside. (I think this one is my favorite.)

And here is the whole group of hoops ready to be hung ... except that I hadn't attached any hangers at that point.

So I pried the exterior and interior hoops apart and fed some burlap ribbon in between them.

In hindsight, it would have been smarter to feed the ribbon through at the same time I sandwiched the netting between the two halves of the hoops.

About Me

A history nerd and profligate collector, I spend way too much of my free time at thrift stores and garage sales, salvaging other people's castoffs. When I'm home, I'm trying to find new purposes for old things and undertaking craft/DIY projects well beyond my skill level. Sometimes they actually turn out.